Hi Jamie,

I'd like to take a moment to address a few of the points you make. I was the editor of this book and worked with Bob to put it together. I have edited about two dozen climbing guidebooks and how-to-climb books, and also been a climber and user of climbing guidebooks for about twenty years. I'm not going to say that I'm perfect or that we did everything perfectly when putting this book together. There are always things that can be done differently and better, in hindsight. You can be assured that we will work to improve the book when it is revised, which is what we always strive to do. Climbing guides are a gigantic amount of work and the information includes hundreds of thousands of tiny details. Sometimes it is only through the revision process that these details can all be made accurate.

This is the second guidebook that I've worked on with Bob Horan, and he has shown himself to be a humble, hardworking, and honorable man, in my opinion. He would never intentionally include mistakes in a book or include areas where bouldering is not allowed. He is very clear in the introduction that the purpose of the book is to offer information about bouldering on public lands, where bouldering is a legal activity. In the real world, of course, the line between private and public lands is forever changing. A place where people have been climbing for years can suddenly get posted private--sometimes land is private and nobody is even aware of it (I have seen this occur in Montana). This book took several years to create and some land status changed during the process. That is regretable and will be fixed on reprint.

You mention creating a "consensus" guide with the participation of the entire Colorado climbing community. In my experience that is not how most guidebooks are written, for a variety of reasons. One is that guidebook authors tend to be somewhat reserved, private people. Not to generalize, but I have found that to be true. Their motivations are many, but I can virtually promise you that money isn't one of them because usually they invest far more time and money into these books than they get back.

I have seen a consensus guidebook written up here in Montana. The Rock Climber's Guide to Montana was done that way, with decidedly mixed results because, as you know, climbers have a tough time getting along. This particular book was written before I started working as a guidebook editor for Falcon, and I was actually on the other side of the fence (your side, as it were). Me and my gang were the ones who bolted the latest-greatest routes and knew some of the areas best, but we chose not to share that information with the guidebook participants. Then, when the book came out, we howled and laughed about all the mistakes. We took copies of the book and wrote all over the pages with red pen, showing how much we knew and how stupid the guidebook people were. We wrote nasty comments to the publisher and had a great time doing it. Later, when I came to work for Falcon Publishing, I spoke with the person who edited the book and coordinated everything, and he told me what a negative experience it had been for him. Needless to say, I felt somewhat ashamed about the behavior of me and my friends. In any case, the book went through the revision process and got cleaned up and today it is accepted by most Montana climbers as being part of the canon of Montana climbing books. It is not perfect and never will be, but it works.

While Bob never advocates any type of high impact bouldering practices, in retrospect I would have included more information about low impact techniques. He does address that in the introduction and we again address it in the RMNP sections, which we did at the request of the rangers using their language. But in the end, Jamie, I'm going to say that people who cut down trees and vegetation to open up boulders, people who stash pads in wilderness areas and national parks, people who alter the rock and do all the other things that give climbers a bad name--these people know what they are doing when they do it, and they have character flaws that are not going to be fixed by a few sentences in a guidebook. A lot of what we're talking about here is common sense: Don't destroy the environment, don't go onto posted private land, don't be an idiot. We can and should always include more information about access issues and low impact techniques, and that too can be rectified in future editions, but in this first edition I will accept some responsibility for not catching that and placing more of an emphasis on that. The enormity of the project and vast amounts of information we were trying to organize distracted us from that mission to a degree.

As far as your more personal attacks on Bob and his previous books, I don't have too much to say about that. I stand by Bob as a good and honorable person who makes a sincere effort and invests an enormous amount of time and effort into these books. The books have been around a long time and are decent sellers. Our Colorado sales representative has not heard an undue amount of complaining from stores or customers. For every person such as yourself who wants to criticize his efforts, there are many more who approach him and tell him how much his books have inspired them and helped them get into bouldering.

In conclusion, is the book perfect? No. But we have sent copies to many climbers in Colorodo for their review and opinion, and the response has been far more positive than anybody would believe after reading your analysis. A major new book like this is always going to be greeted with some controversy, and I don't say that as a way to make light of your concerns, but only to point out that in time, as the years go by and the book is updated and revised, it will, like many climbing guidebooks before it, become an accepted part of the Colorado climbing landscape. To whatever degree you assist in providing information and updates, I give you my personal thanks.

 Best regards,

John Burbidge